We'll Get Stronger Together
by mickytaka558
Summary: The loss against Tōō Academy sure hit them hard, but when Ryōta decided to go back to their locker room and check on Yukio, even though he was asked not to, he realized his captain was doing much worse than the others. [KasaKise]


**We'll Get Stronger Together**

* * *

_It was over._

"98 points against 110, the winner of this match is Tōō Academy!"

_It was really over._

"Line up!"

"Thank you very much!"

With those last words, the match between Tōō Academy and Kaijō High came to an end. The Kaijō team was ready to leave and return to their every day lives between school and regular practice.

They lost. Winning this match was their only chance to advance and eventually win the Inter High all together. And they failed.

As the two teams slowly started to walk towards their respective changing rooms, it was impossible not to notice the extreme difference in their mood.

The fierce winners, Tōō Academy's players, all had a pleased expression on their faces. They won another game and if they kept going like this, they would've reached the top. Everyone shared the enthusiasm of such an amazing possible conclusion for their team, except Daiki.

_'Why should I even pretend?'_

Winning was part of every game he played: no matter who his opponents were, no matter how much they tried, the winner would always be him. It's always been like that and it was always going to be. He was the strongest.

_'The only one who can beat me is me.'_

And that was it.

On the other side of the field, the Kaijō players were extremely quiet. Disappointment and sadness were the only emotions coming out of them, because even though they went all out, doing everything they could, it just wasn't enough; they still lost the match.

No one dared to say a word; they all wished they did better, even though there wasn't the possibility of being better. At least not in that precise moment. And yet, the pain they felt only kept growing with every second that went by and every player blamed himself for not being strong enough.

"Buck up everybody!"

They all looked up together. The words were said by none other than Yukio. As the team's captain, it was his duty to take care of every player and he sure wasn't going to allow them to leave the gym with faces like those. So, if cheering up was what they needed, he was going to give it to them.

"We've done the best we could!" And that's why there was no place for shame in their loss. "We're among the best eight teams in the whole nation! Let's go back with pride!"

He was telling the truth, and the others knew it very well. That's why his words were all it took to make a determined look on their faces return. The pain was still there, but it wasn't the right time to give up. Winter Cup was on its way and they were going to be ready for their comeback.

"Yes!"

Their mood suddenly changed and the tension between them wasn't so high any more, even if it still wasn't as cheerful as its usual.

As they reached their changing rooms, they entered in and took their place, starting then to take off their sweaty jerseys and replacing them with clean spare clothes and their Kaijō sportswear after drying themselves with their towels.

It didn't take them to long before they were done with everything.

Yoshitaka was the first one who had all his things already in his bag and was heading towards the door. He grabbed the handle and then looked back. "Shall we go?"

His teammates lined up behind him and nodded. The shooting guard observed them and noticed that their captain was still sitting on the bench and was still wiping away the sweat from his chest and neck. The others realized it would take him a couple of minutes to finish and decided to wait for him, but the point guard just shook his head.

"Don't worry and go on without me. I'll come after you as soon as I'm done here."

Yoshitaka stiffened.

_'Oh.'_

He understood. He swallowed and then opened the door. "Very well, then. We'll be waiting for you at the main entrance, okay?" he said before walking out, followed by the others.

Ryōta was the last one to follow and, before he could step out, Yukio called him.

"Oi, Kise."

The blonde turned his head to look his way. "Yes, senpai?"

His usual smile and cheerful tone were replaced by a serious, dejected expression and a quiet tone of voice, in which the third-year player could easily feel bitterness. But he expected that. After all, Daiki has always been Ryōta's biggest rival and not once has he managed to beat him, and to day was not an exception. Even now that his team was playing by his side.

It hurt even more now... Yukio swallowed hard, trying to maintain his usual composure, even if in that precise moment it revealed itself a difficult task.

_'Just a bit more.'_

"Could you close the door behind you?"

Ryōta nodded and did what he was asked, leaving his teammate behind.

Finally, Yukio was alone. He was free to let himself go now, since there was no one who could see him. The pain in his chest was starting to become unbearable, but he decided to wait a few more seconds. Just to make sure Ryōta was away far enough so he couldn't hear him.

It was so hard to hold back and the memory of the blonde's pitiful face sure wasn't helping. When he heard no more noises and was sure he was gone, he finally broke down and let his tears flow freely on his face.

* * *

The rest of the players were slowly walking towards the main entrance. However, the place was still quite crowded, since most of the audience hadn't left yet and they preferred to wait for them to free the place, instead of forcing their way through. Ten minutes had gone by, but the people were still there, even if the number was smaller than before. The reason was that they wanted to greet the Tōō Gakuen players and congratulate with them for their victory, which made the Kaijō team slightly irritated, but they decided to wait anyway.

"Kasamatsu-senpai's not here yet." Ryōta mumbled as he turned to look back to where they came from and noticed their captain wasn't behind them. "I should get back and see if he's alright."

"Ah, don't!" Yoshitaka cut him off. "Leave him alone."

Even though there was no trace of anger or any hostile emotion in his voice, Ryōta was still taken aback by such cold and determined words. "But-"

"Kise."

The model's fingers curled into a fist. _'Right... There's no going back now. If we have time to get upset, we should use it to go on. But still...'_

He shook his head and, even if his teammate told him not to, he turned on his heel and headed back rather quickly to where he just came from. He just wanted to check if everything was alright.

"Kise! Wait!" Kōji yelled as he saw his action, but there was nothing to do: Ryōta was already back in to the hall they walked out from just a couple of minutes ago.

The shooting guard sighed. "Let him go. He'll see by himself."

"Ale you sule?" Mitsuhiro asked, a little too loud than needed, as usual.

"Yes. Don't worry about it." Yoshitaka replied. "Come on, let's go. The people are going away. I need some air."

* * *

"_Kise, call me five minutes before the start."_

"_Ah... okay." Ryōta didn't even have time to give a proper answer, because the door was already shut and his captain was out of the door._

_The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Guess he's nervous too..."_

_Those words were meant to be just a thought said out loud to no one in particular, the coach didn't fail to notice it and decided to correct him. "Well, that's not all... For him."_

"_Huh?"_

* * *

"_Senpai, five more minutes." Ryōta called as he approached the point guard who was sitting on one of the benches, not far from their changing room. Yukio raised his head, as if he were awoken from a trance by his words._

_The blonde noticed his expression and figured out that there was definitely something wrong: he must have been thinking about something serious. Also, it wasn't the first time Yukio decided to go out before the beginning of the game and it was always Ryōta's duty to go and call him five minutes before the beginning._

"_You do this quite often since the beginning of the Inter High."_

_The third-year player looked up at him, trying to keep his cool, but the model noticed the obvious mask used to hide his nervousness._

_Yukio knew he wouldn't be able to fool his ace; he always admitted that Ryōta's observing skills were absolutely amazing. Oh, well. There was no point of hiding what happened last year. After all, he was a member of the team as well, so he would've found out sooner or later._

"_Last year we had the strongest line-up in history, with all our members aiming for the championship. Do you know what happened in the end?"_

_The ace seemed to think about it for a moment. "If I recall... You lost in the preliminaries, didn't you?"_

_The captain swallowed. _'So he does know.'_ But that wasn't the whole story behind their loss. There was much more to it._

"_We lost because of me."_

_Ryōta blinked, and as he realised what actually came out of Yukio's mouth, his eyes widened. "What?"_

"_At the crucial moment, with just a one point difference, I made a wrong pass and allowed our opponents to turn the tables and win the match."_

_He was still regretting that day and its memory hurt just as much as it did in the beginning. "The tears of my senpai and the blame of the alumni made me consider quitting basketball. But then, the coach chose me to be the new captain. _'That's why you have to do it.'_ was what he said. And at that time, I decided."_

_As he spoke those words, he looked up, right into Ryōta's eyes and continued his speech. "I didn't want to redeem, neither did I want to erase my faults... I decided that we would win the next Inter High: that would show my resolve and give me a meaning as the captain of our team!"_

_Ryōta listened carefully to every single word he said and finally he got to understand the burden on Yukio's back, which was keeping to make him nervous before every single game and was causing him to lose himself in deep thoughts._

_He decided._

_He turned his back towards him and Yukio could only stare at him, waiting for him to speak. Because he knew he was going to say something._

"_Well, my goal is to win against Aominecchi for the first time."_

_That wasn't all though... There was still something. "Ah... Really?" the captain questioned._

_Ryōta knew this match would be _the_ match: it would be all or nothing. And he, as the ace, wanted to lead his team to the first option._

'No matter what it takes.'

"_I'll win, even if it kills me."_

* * *

Failure.

Again.

_'Why?'_

Yukio couldn't believe the events he hated with all his might were repeating themselves once again. The pain in his chest was growing and the fact that he knew it was the last opportunity for him to keep his promise was only worsening the situation: it was his last year and there wasn't going to be another try.

_'I let them down.'_

Tears were flowing freely by now and he could feel his eyes burning, but it just wasn't going to stop. The grief and disappointment kept growing and nothing was going out of him.

Suddenly everything he felt turned into rage, and a loud scream left his mouth as he turned around and gave a strong punch to the locker in front of him. Then he collapsed on his knees.

_'They're not going to forgive me...'_

"Shit... Shit. SHIT!"

More tears. More punches.

Another scream. Even louder than the first one.

"S-senpai..."

Everything froze.

Yukio's eyes widened. _'Oh no...'_ He turned to look over his shoulder only to find Ryōta standing at the door, eyes wide as well. He was so distracted by his own venting that he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings at all, so it wasn't a surprise if he didn't manage to notice the blonde opening the door and come in.

He slowly turned around, still kneeling on the ground, to make sure he wasn't just imagining things. Unfortunately for him, his ace was really there, even though he was the last person he wanted to see in that moment. Not that there was anyone he wanted to see...

He looked behind the younger boy, to see if the other members of the team were also there, but there was no one. _'They probably know though.' _He was grateful for that, because he really didn't want to be seen by any more people in those conditions.

As if understanding Yukio's thoughts, Ryōta stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, leaning on it afterwards and trying to find the right words to say.

He wasn't expecting to find his captain in a cheerful mood; not after such a loss. But he wasn't expeting to find him in such a pitiful state either.

The point guard kept staring at him for quite some time, without uttering a single word. However, after a while, he felt the need to say something, at least to explain his behaviour, which was so unsettling for a captain of a team, who just twenty minuted before was speaking words of encouragement to prevent the same reaction from the others.

_'He probably thinks I'm stupid.'_

Yukio wasn't sure of what the boy in front of him was thinking: Ryōta wasn't looking at him anymore: his eyes were fixed on the floor beneath him, covered by his hair and this made it impossible for the older boy to even try to guess what was on his mind.

"Kise... I-"

"It was my fault."

Yukio blinked.

"Huh?"

The ace finally decided to look up and meet his captain's gaze. There was a bitter smile on his face and he could feel his eyes burning and he was feeling as if he was about to start to cry anytime soon. Yukio has never seen such a sorrowful expression on the always cheerful Kise Ryōta.

"It was because of me that we lost. I should have been better... I should have done better. If I just tried, maybe we-"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm an idiot." The blonde felt his tears coming out and continued from where he was cut off. "If I just tried harder, maybe we would've won. If I did, Kasamatsu-senpai wouldn't be crying right now and the others wouldn't be so hurt... I'm such an idiot."

Yukio's eyes widened.

The small forward kept talking, but the he wasn't listening anymore: he didn't care about the rest. The fact that Ryōta was so upset and was convinced that his grief was caused by his own powerlessness was what hit him.

He slowly stood up and started to walk towards his friend and stopped when he was just a couple of steps away. Ryōta didn't even seem to notice his presence, because he was still babbling about how he failed to bring them to victory and how he's an idiot.

"That's true."

Ryōta gasped and his body froze: so he did blame him. He closed his eyes tightly and bit his lip; he really let him down this time. "Forgive me, senpai..."

Suddenly, he felt a strong punch hitting his stomach, which caused him to land down on his knees and bend over because of the pain it caused him. "Ouch!"

"You're an idiot!" Yukio yelled. "That's the only true thing of everything you just said! The rest is just bullshit!"

Ryouta looked up, confused. "Eh?"

Yukio lowered himself down slightly and a second later, the blonde received a slap on the back of his head.

"Stop bullying me, senpai!" he whined, holding the spot with a hand, the other one still resting on his stomach. His previous sad face was immediately replaced by crocodile tears and a pout. "I was sincerely apologizing and you hit me like that..."

A vein popped on the captain's forehead.

"Shut the hell up! And stand up, for God's sake!"

The model obeyed immediately, not wanting to be hit anymore, and when they were finally standing face to face again, Yukio spoke: "You may be a hopeless idiot, but if you're accusing yourself of being the main reason of our defeat, I'm going to kick you even harder!"

Ryōta gulped, bracing himself and waiting for another part of his body to start hurting as well. The pain never came, though.

"Listen to me, Kise." The blonde looked up. "They way you played today was amazing." His captain was actually praising him: he was serious; there wasn't a single trace of lies or mocking in his voice. He couldn't believe it... He wasn't angry at him and wasn't blaming him for anything.

When he realised he had Ryōta's full attention, Yukio continued. "You stood up to your ex-teammate and you were able to do so after your first try and without causing too much damage to your body. I know you ended up hurting yourself either way, but after some rest and a bit of carefulness, it won't affect your play in our future games. You did a great job."

With those words, he put a hand on Ryōta's head and ruffled his hair gently. There was still a trace of tears on the corners of the blonde's eyes, so the gentle movement of his hand was once again replaced by a punch, which was just a bit stronger than it should have been.

"Now stop blaming yourself, you idiot! You're not the only player on the team! We all lost and that's why we're all going to practice harder and get better. Then we'll kick their ass! So get yourself back together and let's go to meet the others! They won't wait for us forever!"

Ryōta couldn't hold back a smile and Yukio was glad to see it was sincere this time; that alone was enough to make all the previous pain disappear.

He turned and grabbed his bag from the bench he left it on and threw it over his shoulder. The blonde had already regained his composure by then and had already opened the door, waiting for his captain to approach him.

They went out together and were now walking side to side towards the exit.

"Kasamatsu-senpai?"

"What?"

"I promise you I'm going to get stronger."

A punch hit him on his shoulder, making him whine once again. "Senpai! What did I do now?!"

"You're an idiot."

"So mean!" Ryōta faked tears once again, but deep inside he was glad. His senpai was feeling better and he felt relieved that he was able to fix it. He let Yukio walk in front of him now and was watching his back with a smile on his face.

"Senpai?"

"What now?"

_'I really love this team.'_

"_We_ are going to get stronger. Together."

The blonde wasn't able to see it, but after he said those words, Yukio's lips curved up into a smile as well. Looks like the idiot finally got it: they were a team, and they were going to do everything together; nobody was going to be left out and nobody was going to be blamed for anything that would happen in the future... Not anymore.

"Yes, yes, we are. But now walk a little faster or I'm going to leave you behind!"

"Senpai, you're ruining the moment!"

"Shut up, you idiot!"

"So mean!"

They were going to make it. No matter what it took.


End file.
